dissimulate
/dɪˈsɪmjʊˌleɪt/
dissimulate verb: to practise deception by concealment or omission, or by feigning a false appearance; to dissemble.
Verb
dissimulate (third-person singular simple present dissimulates, present participle dissimulating, simple past and past participle dissimulated)
- To practise deception by concealment or omission, or by feigning a false appearance; to dissemble.
- But now, as he paced alone in his apartment, now that he was not upon exhibition, now when there was no eye to behold him, and there was no reason to dissimulate or veil a single thought or feeling, his look was anything but open; the last trace of frankness disappeared; the muscles at mouth and...1913, Booth Tarkington, chapter 13, in The Flirt, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 212
- To disguise or hide by adopting a false appearance; to dissemble.
- [P]ublic feeling required the meagreness of nature to be dissimulated by tall barricades of frizzed curls and bows.1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter III, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book I, page 38
- To connive at; to wink at; to pretend not to notice.
- That al thyng be forgiven to theim that be olde and broken, and to theim that be yonge and lusty to dissimulate for a time, and nothyng to be forgiuen to very yong children.1533 John Bourchier (Lord Berners), The Golden Boke of Marcus Aurelius 9
Adjective
dissimulate (not comparable)
- Feigned, simulated, pretended, false.
- Where they may win ought : by fayre diſimilate ſhow,
There they flickar, and flatter, in fauer to grow.1556, John Heywood, chapter LXIII, in The Spider and the Flie. […], London: […] Tho[mas] Powell, →OCLC; republished as A[dolphus] W[illiam] Ward, editor, The Spider and the Flie. […] (Publications of...
- Where they may win ought : by fayre diſimilate ſhow,
dissimulate meaning in Bengali and Malayalam
dissimulate in Bengali
- মনের ভাব লুকানো, ভান করা
dissimulate in Malayalam
- dissemble, pretend, deceive
- യാഥാർത്ഥ്യം മറയ്ക്കുക, യഥാർത്ഥസ്വഭാവം മറച്ചുപിടിക്കുക, ഇല്ലാത്തതു ഭാവിക്കുക, കപടം ചെയ്ക, യാഥാർത്ഥ്യം മറച്ചുവെച്ചു പെരുമാറുക, കപടവേഷം ധരിക്കുക
Forms of dissimulate
| third-person singular present | dissimulates |
|---|---|
| present participle | dissimulating |
| past participle | dissimulated |
| past | dissimulated |
Origin of dissimulate
Inherited from Middle English dissimulaten, dissimilaten, from Latin dissimulātus + -en (“verb-forming suffix”), perfect passive participle of dissimulō (“to conceal, to pretend, to neglect”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from dissimilis (“unlike”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). Compare the obsolete dissimule (“to conceal, disguise”), from Old French dissimuler (French dissimuler), ultimately from the same Latin root. Doublet of dissemble, dissimilate, and dissimule.
Inherited from Middle English dissimulat(e), dissimilat(e) (attested in Robert Henryson with an active sense, see the citation page), from dissimulātus, see Etymology 1 and -ate (adjective-forming suffix) for more.
Words formed from dissimulate
Questions about dissimulate
- What does dissimulate mean?
- Dissimulate means to practise deception by concealment or omission, or by feigning a false appearance; to dissemble.
- What is dissimulate in Bengali?
- Dissimulate in Bengali is মনের ভাব লুকানো, ভান করা. See Dissimulate meaning in Bengali.
- What part of speech is dissimulate?
- Dissimulate can be a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce dissimulate?
- Dissimulate is pronounced /dɪˈsɪmjʊˌleɪt/.
- What is the past tense of dissimulate?
- The past tense of dissimulate is dissimulated.
Words near dissimulate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dissimulate (page history and authors); dissimulate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dissimulate (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-dissimulate.wav.
Cite this entry: “dissimulate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dissimulate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.